Khalid Latif – Broken Vows Free vs. Forced Marriages
AI: Summary ©
The speaker discusses the importance of avoiding caught in the cycle of marriage, where the Prophet is present. They stress the importance of finding a good man and a woman, finding a healthy marriage, understanding the deeper consequences of marriage, and avoiding dishonoring and domestic abuse. They emphasize the need for individuals to say no to marriage and not be associated with certain emotions.
AI: Summary ©
Lord of the universe, the master of the
day of judgment.
I bear witness and testimony to the oneness
of
Allah, to his magnificence,
his omnipotence, his might, his glory,
to his being the creator and sustainer of
all things,
the giver of life,
the guider of hearts,
the master of the day of judgment.
And I bear witness to the fact that
Muhammad ibn Abdallah
sallallahu
alaihi wasallam
is his servant and final messenger.
May the peace and blessings of Allah be
upon him and upon all those who choose
to tread in his path until the last
day.
It is said
that in the days before he received revelation,
the prophet salallahu ta'ala alaihi wasallam
would habitually seek to separate himself from the
Meccan society.
Then on a regular basis, the beloved of
Allah alaihi salaam, he would go to seek
solitude so that he could contemplate upon his
life in the cave that we know is
the cave of hira. And we know that
on that one fateful day when the beloved
of Allah Alaihi Salam thinks that he is
by himself, his solitude is disrupted by a
massive creature of Allah
Jibrael
revelation, the prophet, alayhis salaam, being a man
of that initial revelation, the prophet, alaihis salaam,
being a man of great strength is able
to respond despite the absurdity of the situation.
That I am not a reciter, I am
not able to read. The entire interaction
He is left alone as he is walking
down. The doubts begin to plague his mind.
He is left alone as he is trying
to understand
everything that has just happened to him.
And now when he needs someone more so
than any other point in his life, now
when he needs someone to be told be
telling him that he is someone who is
good, someone who will diminish these doubts that
is in his head. The Prophet
being one who is divinely guided by Allah
being prepped for this most crucial moment in
his life. He is not met by any
of his male companions.
He is not met by Abu Bakr, Omer,
or Uthman. He is not met by an
Ali, may Allah
be pleased with all of them. But when
the prophet sallallahu ta'ala ta'alaalaihi wa sallam needs
somebody more so than at any other point
in his life, Allah puts
into his hand the gentle hand of his
wife, Khadija radiAllahu
ta'ala Anha.
That you are a good man.
You honor the rights of guests. You treat
orphans with the respect that they deserve. Allah
would not test you in this way where
you would be possessed by demons.
And this is the relationship that the
Prophet
had with his wife.
A source of support for one another, a
means by which they could get through the
test and the trial find ourselves
ourselves in a situation where the conversation about
our marital ambitions and our marital pursuits, they
become very confusing.
That we don't know how, in fact we
can get to that point where we can
find somebody who would embody those characteristics that
the prophet alaihis salaam and his wife Khadija
radiAllahu ta'ala Anah embodied when they were showing
to us how a husband and a wife
should be there for one another.
We have an ideal. We have something that
we construct as a value, but we don't
know how to get to that point. And
in pursuit of that ideal, perhaps to an
extent that we make it something that is
truly utopian and intangible in nature, but still
it is something that we are struggling to
get in the course of our lives because
we know that we want it. We know
that we desire it. We know that it
is something that we believe will make our
hearts content, but we don't know how to
get there.
We don't know how to get to that
point where we find that individual who will
make us somebody who feels as if we
are whole. We don't know how we can
get to that point where we can understand
critically and crucially
a maze by a means by which we
will find that significant other who will bring
us benefit not only in this world, but
into the next.
And it becomes such a confusing process
regardless of our age, regardless of our ethnicity,
regardless of our culture, regardless of our socioeconomic
background. This thing of marriage becomes so confusing,
and the pursuit
of
How do I find someone to get married
to?
How do I go about doing it?
Where does the permissibility
stop, and where does the impermissibility
start? How do I get to a place
where I appease my parents and do and
be everything that they want to be while
I still stay true to the things that
I know will make me happy?
How do I go about finding finding somebody
in a manner in which that relationship that
I will sustain will be one that will
sustain me not only in the breaths that
I take in this world, but will be
something that will weigh heavy on my scales
and benefit me when I stand in front
of Allah, Ojeda,
on that day when I'm taking into account.
And the processes that we see are those
those that are defined for us at a
level of permissibility,
but they don't equate to something that we
would understand to be normative
tradition.
There are many ways of going about it,
but there is not one specific way.
The prophet
Ta'ala Alaihi Wasallam when he gets married to
his wife, Khadija radiAllahu ta'ala Anha, he is
in her employ for many years.
Khadija radiAllahu ta'ala
she sees this man as being somebody who
espouses a certain character, a certain sense of
virtue. He has a certain integrity about him,
and so she, under her volition, says that
I want to marry this man.
She is a woman,
and she has made a determination
man to seek out my hand. I have
to sit here and wait for some individual
who is male to
my hand. I have to sit here and
wait for some individual who is male to
come and say, will you marry me?
But she sees somebody that she wants to
be wed to. She sees somebody who will
be of a benefit to her. She sees
somebody who she will be able to create
a healthy household with, why is she gonna
wait?
But it's one way that it can be
done.
And from that relationship we see that the
Prophet salallahu ta'ala
most assuredly benefits.
Not only does he benefit, but the family
that he begins to create in this world,
they too benefit.
Fatima
a woman who is considered to be amongst
the best women ever created according to our
tradition.
She has a mother
who is amongst the best of creation, and
so too her father is the best of
creation.
How then will she not be the woman
that she is when she has this household
that she is coming out of?
But it makes sense because the 2 makes
sense together.
And they get to the point where they
can be together because Khadija radiAllahu ta'ala, anha,
sees for herself that this is someone who
would be good for me, and so she
seeks him out.
Ali radiAllahu ta'ala an, when he finds himself
in a situation where he wants to get
married to this woman Fatima Radhiallahu ta'ala An,
he goes and he speaks to the prophet
sallallahu alaihi wasallam.
That the tradition, it tells us that Ali
radiAllahu anha, he is standing in front of
the beloved of Allah alaihi salam and he
says, You Ali, what is it that you
want from me?
And Ali, he can't get it out. He
is stammering, but the prophet alaihi salam, he
says, perhaps you have come to ask me
for Fatima.
The marriage is something that moves forward. But
what we understand, again, it is a different
way of doing it.
Ali makes a determination
for himself as to what he wants, and
he goes and he seeks it out.
He makes a decision that this woman is
going to be someone who is good for
me so that I can exercise an air
of my own critical thinking and understanding who
would be good for me, and I will
go and ask for her to be mine.
And it works out for him as well.
Umar radhiallahu ta'ala an, when it comes for
the time of his daughter to get married,
he wants the best for his daughter.
He goes to Uthman
anhu who does not respond to a positive
with his proposal. He then goes to Abu
Bakr who does not say anything as well.
Umar, he begins to become frustrated and then
the beloved of of Allah alaihi wasalam comes
and says, You Umar, will I be? He
wants to marry his daughter.
And Abu Bakr, he says that I knew
that the prophet alaihi wasalam was going to
do this had he not that I would
have married her myself.
But Umar is in a place where he
wants the best for his child. He goes
and he speaks to the best. He's not
saying that I have a daughter. Let me
let her sit at home and wait for
someone to come and ask of me. I
will go actively out and seek somebody for
her because this is what I understand
my responsibility
to be.
But again, it's a different way of doing
it.
He didn't do it the way that Khadija
radiAllahu ta'ala anha did it.
He didn't do it the way that
Ali did it.
The 3 instances or 3 that take different
means, they take different paths, they take different
methods to get to the point that they
desire to be in.
And we shouldn't put ourselves in a place
where we understand that these are the only
means by which we can actively find someone
or we recommend to those who are in
our care or under our responsibility
that this is the way that you do
it.
But a much deeper level, we have to
understand the way our sharia works.
It allows for us as very different individuals
and very different peoples to approach things in
very different ways because we are coming from
different backgrounds.
Is meant to be expansive and empowering into
something that is restrictive, and it
does not give us that sense of vibrancy
that is meant to give us.
And it also causes many to become disenchanted
with this religion of Islam
because we are telling them to do something
that doesn't make sense for them to do.
Permissibility
does not equate to normativity within our law.
Just because something is allowed doesn't mean that
that is the only way that it is
allowed to happen.
And in this thing of our marriage pursuits,
we have to understand it from this perspective
because the prophet, alayhis salaam, let his companions
do it in many different ways.
And so too, we have to be able
to engage one another in a manner which
we are letting ourselves do this in many
different ways
because this thing becomes the epicenter of our
communities.
We don't have healthy homes. We find our
families to be very unhappy. We are in
situations where many find themselves in
they were confined to a rigid understanding of
what they had to do when essentially what
was being told to them was obligatory upon
them was something that they were not obligated
to do at all.
Why do you have to get married to
somebody who is from your country?
Why do you have to get married to
somebody who has a certain degree?
Why do you have to get married to
somebody who is from a specific
has
Allah has not told us that we are
obligated to.
There are certain restrictions, there are certain guidelines,
there are limitations that are there for us
for our benefit.
But we cannot arbitrarily begin to decide that
something based off of our relative understanding
of morality
permissibility
for us is because we are so different
from one another.
And it's not just that we are different
because we come from different ethnic backgrounds or
our origins are different. Even within our households,
we have to understand that between the generations,
there exists an opportunity for different ways of
pursuing it as well.
So if my parents put me in a
place where I was married in a certain
manner, it doesn't mean that my child has
to get married in the same way just
because I went through it in that way.
If I was allowed to be in a
place where I made a determination as to
who my spouse would be, this is something
that the religion says I'm entitled to do.
Just as much as it entitles me to
be in a place where I can say
based off of my cultural norms, we will
exercise an understanding that your marriage will be
arranged.
Both are allowed.
But because both are allowed, it doesn't mean
that one is not.
There are just different ways of doing it.
And the one thing that we find explicitly
in the
Dawud Rahimullah, we find the hadith, we find
the tradition that the prophet salallahu ta'ala alaihi
wa sallam, he has given word of a
young woman who was married against her will.
And he speaks to this woman and he
says that this marriage will be null and
void if you don't want it to be
taking place
because you can't get them married without their
consent.
It is not allowed. It is not allowed.
Forced marriage is something that is haram.
When we try to understand this, we have
to understand the deeper implications of it because
we are seeking to honor the objectives of
a culture that should never supersede the objectives
of our Sharia.
We have to understand the broader reasons why
we would be individuals who commit to another
individual in this life to such a deep
extent that we would say they are our
husband or our wife.
And when we force somebody to get into
a relationship that doesn't make sense for them,
we are just perpetuating cycles of misunderstanding
in households that are not very healthy.
We put our children into places where they're
forced to succumb to circumstances that they should
not be forced to succumb to.
And because we don't have the connection to
their subjective emotions and the pains that they
experience beyond the time that we force them
into those predicaments,
we let it go as if
women and young men on a daily basis
find themselves in this situation where they are
forced to acquiesce to a marriage contract that
they do not wanna be a part of
because they have a misconstrued
understanding of what it means to be obedient
to your parents.
Islam does not say to you as a
mother or a father that you are fully
entitled to do what you will with your
child's life. It is your child's life, not
your own.
And if you don't see the direct repercussions
and ramifications
of it, this is something that is problematic.
A young woman came to me. A young
woman comes to me pretty much every single
week, every single day at times with these
kind of issues.
Then my parents, they don't listen to me.
My parents, they don't speak to me. They
put me in a place where I went
to a school, I went to a university,
I came to them with an individual who
would be good to me. They said not
only will you not be able to get
married to this person, you have to get
married to a person who is not only
from our country, but from the specific village
that is within our country.
And if you don't do so, you are
a bad person. You are dishonoring the rights
that we have over you as parents, and
you are doing something that surely you will
cast sin upon yourself.
And the child wanting to not be someone
who is disobedient to these parents, they find
themselves in a place, I'm just gonna do
what I will.
And they find themselves then in a place
where they are not connected to the person
who they are now sharing a bed with,
who they will now be bringing children into
the world with, who they look to as
a means of support, a means who will
be someone who will be there for them
when no one else is there for them.
They don't even know how to talk to
one another.
A young woman came to see me recently
who was forced into a marriage by her
parents, who had engaged in domestic abuse, emotional
abuse, all kinds of abuse.
This girl said that my parents, they sent
me to a place that I did not
want to be at. I did not wanna
be part of this contract. They said that
you will be it because our honor is
at stake. What we have in terms of
what the people in our community will think
of us, that is what is at stake.
You will do it and you will enjoy
doing it.
And this young woman, she says that I
was forced to be in this relationship for
more than years, and every single night that
my husband came and approached me in a
physically intimate way, I felt as if this
man was * me because I had no
desire to be with him. I did not
want to be there sharing that bed with
him, and I wished I had said no
when I had the opportunity to say no.
And I wished they had listened to me
every single time I had said no and
had not jumped when I, in my weakness,
I had said yes.
Don't do that to your children.
Don't set them up in that way.
And if you are in a place where
you are trying to understand your own marital
pursuits,
don't say yes to a marriage that you
do not want to be a part of.
You cannot sacrifice your happiness
in that way.
In the hadith, we have a woman
bin Mahramah.
This woman, she narrates hadith that we find
in the book of Abu Dawud
And this woman, she has a story that
is associated
with her, that when her husband passes away,
she has several daughters who are not wed.
And her husband's brother, he seeks to take
seize of these young girls and get them
married to people that he thinks they should
get married to, not people that they want
to marry on their own.
And so this woman, Kaila, it is said
that she takes her youngest daughter, she is
able to grab her and run from the
situation, and she goes and seeks out the
prophet salallahu ta'ala alaihi wasallam in Medina.
And on her way to Medina, it is
said that this man, her brother-in-law
begins to catch up to where she is.
When she gets to the outskirts of the
city, a struggle ensues and he takes the
child back with him so that he can
do with her what he wants to do,
get her married against her will. This woman,
Qayla, it is said,
into the masjid at the time of the
fajr prayer the next day.
And as she sits, she is given the
opportunity to speak to the prophet salallahu
alaihi wasallam. And when the beloved of Allah
alaihi wasallam
hears what has happened to her and what
is happening to her daughters, he says that
we should not oppress Bayla and her daughters
and force them to get married against their
will.
Every faithful Muslim should help them in this
cause,
and a Muslim should a Muslim should do
good deeds and not evil ones.
What more do we want to
hear and what more do we want to
understand?
We cannot perpetuate these cycles that cast upon
our communities stereotypes and images that exist in
very negative ways because whether we are conscious
of it or not, each and every one
of us speaks for this religion of Islam.
The manner in which we engage people, the
precedent that we set for them, and aside
from that, we have to think of the
individuals whose lives we are setting up and
playing with as if we don't really think
that they have any worth except that they
are toys for us to do what we
will with them.
The prophet alayhi salaam, his daughter Fatima
had a most unique relationship with him.
They called this woman Fatima Zahra,
the mother of her father. They said that
she mimicked him in all kinds of ways,
that she embodied his characteristics.
Most assuredly, they had a unique relationship and
they model for us the way a father
should treat his offspring.
Fatima radiAllahu ta'ala Anha, Aisha sees her when
she went on one occasion and the prophet
alaihi salaam is whispering into her ear.
And she sees that Fatima cries and she
sees that Fatima laughs and Aisha says to
her that what was it that the beloved
of Allah alaihi wa sallam was saying to
you?
And Fatima radhiallahu ta'ala anha, she says that,
my father, he said to me that he
would be leaving from this world soon,
and this brought tears to my eyes.
And then he said to me that I
would be from amongst the first who would
join him again, and this made me smile.
And Fatima radiAllahu ta'ala Anhale said that when
she knows she is leaving from this world
and some of our narrations,
she takes her own bed into her courtyard
and she looks into the heavens with a
smile on her face because she will be
reunited with her father once more.
Would our daughters do that if they knew
they would be with us again?
Would our children find themselves in a similar
situation based off the way that we have
treated them?
If you are in a place where you
find yourself in this predicament and you have
the ability to say no, then say no.
And if you are in a place where
you have been forced into this situation and
you are not able to remove yourself from
it when you have your own children,
don't perpetuate the cycle.
Don't let it continue on. Don't let it
be something that keeps going. Forced marriages are
not allowed in our religion.
Both the husband, both the wife, both the
groom and the bride, they have to be
able to agree and consent to that
contract. And if you do it against their
will, you are doing something that most assuredly
is impermissible
in our tradition, in our religion, in our
faith,
and you are honoring the objectives of a
culture that should not supersede the objectives of
our sharia, of our Islam, ever.
Our lives were given to us.
Even in pursuit of saying that we know
what is best for somebody else, we can't
justify it by saying that because we love
you, we have
decide for themselves.
And if we don't do it, we are
not honoring the rights that they have over
us.
May Allah, subhanahu wa ta'ala, guide us and
protect us. May he bless us with knowledge
that benefits us. May he bless us with
a tawfiq to understand and implement that knowledge
into our daily lives, and may he guide
and bless us
all.